It is told that the German officers said that men had never fought more bravely; it is also said that they sent back to their headquarters for a chaplain to bury the Irish dead.
Major Charrier and eight officers of the Munsters were buried near the trench where the men were laid to rest, under the shadow of the trees where they had fought their great fight. But though we call them dead, we know that the spirit that is strong and cheerful, and that has added to the page of a nation’s history, outlives all so-called untimely endings. The finished work, the completed undertaking, is not for many in the story of this great war, and it is not a little thing but a fine deed, to have left a record that betters the honourable traditions of the Royal Munster Fusiliers.
“Dying ye shall die greatly with a glory that shall surpass the glories of the past.”
The Munsters at Festubert
December 22nd, 1914
Drawn by Philip Dadd.
December 22nd, 1914.